


Black-eyed Susan

by grovestep



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Flowers, Sad Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Strike-Commander Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22342774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grovestep/pseuds/grovestep
Summary: In which Jack gets an idea to plant some flowers.-Written for the Florawatch zine!
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Florawatch: An Overwatch Floral Themed Fanzine





	Black-eyed Susan

The black-eyed Susans bloomed the same time every year. It was as predictable as clockwork. Their yellow petals shown as bright as the sun when they poked out between the corn stalks of Jack’s childhood farm. They would crop up again after the harvest, creating a sea of black and yellow where the corn once stood. They were persistent, hardy. They would come back year after year and, sometimes, even survive through the Indiana winter. 

Jack admired that about them. They were steadfast and reliable. Even if the world was ending, the black-eyed Susans would be there in their bright and beautiful glory. He remembered picking them for his mother when he was a boy. He’d try and try to yank them out of the ground with his bare hands, but the flower wouldn’t budge. He needed to get a pair of scissors to cut the stems. He’d plod back to the kitchen were his mother spent most of her time baking, scissors in one hand and flowers in the other. Jack would present them with a big toothy grin. His mother would always put them in a vase on the windowsill. 

Whenever he was feeling stressed as the commander of Overwatch, his thoughts turned to the fields of his Indiana home. They were simpler times, where the most pressing issues were when to set the tobacco and plant the corn, or if the pregnant cow would need help giving birth. At the time, he couldn’t wait to get out of Bloomington. Now, he wished he could return home and immerse himself in simple farm life again. 

Jack stared out the window of his office. The higher-ups had insisted he take an office with a prime view of his own statue. As though he were so egotistical that he needed to stare at it to be reminded of his accomplishments. He would much prefer it if the window overlooked a field of flowers. There were no flowers here. The groundskeepers opted for tropical grasses over anything else. The Strike Commander Morrison statue rested on an elevated pedestal, which was surrounded by a ring of dirt. Jack tried not to think of the deeper symbolism in that.

He stroked his chin and sighed. They had asked him to pose for it, but that was the extent of the say he had in the matter. If he’d declined, they would have used a photo of him instead. They never asked if he wanted to be sitting, standing, or doing a handstand. They hadn’t asked him if he wanted the statue to be in the plaza or on the roof, or if he even wanted it at all. They definitely hadn’t asked him what foliage he’d prefer around the base. 

Jack pushed back from the desk and rose to his feet. He left his office and traversed the familiar hallways. Instead of continuing onward through the corridor that lead to the other offices and common area, he took a left toward the maintenance stairs. His footsteps echoed off the walls as he descended. At the bottom of the stairs, just before the boiler room, there was a closet. Jack opened it and grinned. Garden tools hung from pegs on the wall while bags of dirt and fertilizer slumped against the ground. He rubbed his hands together and stepped into the closet.

\--

Everyone stared as Strike Commander Morrison backed his beat-up, blue pick-up truck up to the statue. Jack climbed out of the front seat, undid the truck bed’s latch, and pulled out pots upon pots of black-eyed Susans. He wore his best overalls (which meant the ones that had seen the most use, pockmarked with holes and stained with dirt and grass), slipped on his muck boots, and pulled on his garden gloves. He looked more like the groundskeepers than the groundskeepers did.

Jack slicked back his hair, squared his shoulders, and gathered the gardening tools he’d borrowed from the maintenance closet. He ignored the stares as he hoisted himself onto the raised pedestal his likeness stood on. Strike Commander Morrison was juxtaposed by Jack. The half-smile the statue wore was no comparison to Jack’s grin as he started to plant black-eyed Susans in the ring of dirt. He was momentarily transported back to the fields Indiana. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the corn and feel the breeze on his face. It was like he was crouching in the cornfields again, ready to harvest a flower for his mother.

Jack worked throughout the afternoon. He wiped his brow of sweat with a handkerchief, which he returned to his back pocket each time he was done with it. By the time he was finished, he was coated with a sheen of sweat, and his knees were muddied and smelled faintly of manure. A fine spray of dirt covered his cheeks, mimicking freckles. He hefted himself down from the pedestal and stood back to admire his handiwork. The statue no longer stood in a ring of dirt. Black-eyed Susans bobbed and swayed around its’ feet.

“There,” Jack said to himself. “It was just missing a little of that Bloomington charm.”

\--

After the fall of Overwatch, Strike Commander Morrison disappeared. To the world, he was dead. The statue of his likeness was never removed. Instead, it was turned into a memorial. Someone installed a placard at the base with his birth and death date. It had seen better days as the metal slowly succumbed to weather and oxidation. The flowers Jack had planted still flourished, despite everything. 

Soldier:76 sat at the top of a hill that overlooked the old headquarters. He stared down at the statue ringed in yellow flowers. If he closed his eyes, he could almost smell the corn and feel the breeze on his face. Slowly, he removed his visor and wept.

**Author's Note:**

> I can never resist an opportunity to make Jack cry.


End file.
